TTMLPTWW ~ Chapter 149

“Weren’t you able to find out about the last legacy? It seemed to be related to the right of succession.”

It was Makia’s question as he prepared a luxurious dinner.

I was pretending to have the same goal as Makia, who was trying to take the throne.

Every time we had dinner together, he would set the table with delicacies, and Dahlia and I ate so well that we couldn’t even compare.

‘You’re the first to beat me at eating.’

I shook my head, feeling defeated.

“I don’t know anything other than the Nox and Diem areas. It seems to be related to a necklace, do you have any idea?”

I was recalling the Princess’s voice in my dream, saying, ‘Never give the necklace to those wearing masks.’

That meant the necklace was an important clue, but I had no idea.

He stopped his deft fork movements and stared intently at my necklace.

“Hmm, shall we break it?”

“It’s a diamond, so it’ll be hard to break. And what if it’s an important token?”

“It could be a fake jewel.”

“What crazy royal family keeps a fake as an heirloom?”

“The Bariesa Royal Family were all eccentrics. They even had the eloquence to sell an ordinary stone for a high price, calling it ‘a fragment that fell from the Aurora, a passage to another world.’”

The storytelling is crazy.

I almost made a payment just by listening to the explanation. They’re indeed a family that made it with their words.

Anyway, I could tell that it was a difficult problem that even the head of the Organization, who was said to have good information, didn’t know about.

After dinner.

Nadia came to my room with dessert in one hand and clothes in the other.

“It’s cold and humid here because there’s a river nearby. You must wear thin underwear. It’s what I used to wear, but I washed it cleanly.”

“Did you bring it on purpose? Thank you. I’ll wear it well. I’m glad we’re about the same size.”

Nadia sat next to me, putting the chewy cookies she learned to make from my recipe in her mouth.

“I should submit a proposal to get my lady some clothes. It’s too inefficient to wash them. I don’t have many clothes either, so I can’t give you much.”

She spoke like an office worker, then picked up a cookie and put it in my mouth this time.

“More than that, the price of real gold was falling. Thanks to you, I sold it at a good price. They say it’s a bribe, but they gave it to me to add to the Organization withdrawal fee, right?”

“I’ve been caught. You’re going to open a dessert shop with Dwayne when you leave the Organization, right? I’ll go every day, so give it to me for free.”

“Of course, I have to. Dwayne’s face is fierce, but if I teach him a service smile, customers won’t run away, right?”

Nadia was dreaming of a hopeful future with her boyfriend.

Indeed, the power of love. Is it strong enough to get a job in a terrifying Organization and pay off the withdrawal fee together?

She made a smacking sound as she ate her snack and looked at me.

“Come to think of it, were you on good terms with your husband? You went to have a political marriage, right?”

“We were madly in love.”

I said with a solemn face.

Nadia looked at me with sympathetic eyes.

“He must be looking for you like crazy right now. How heartbroken he must be that his cute wife disappeared.”

I’ve never heard Masera call me cute, but he must be trying to find me anyway.

“Wouldn’t Count Queensguard be looking for my lady too? He’s still your father, after all.”

No way. He’s probably putting on an act of crying on the outside while calculating how to get Nox back on the inside.

The Count was just a sly old fox who was old enough to be my father.

As I was grumbling inwardly, a question suddenly popped up.

‘Then who is my real father?’

“Why are you doing this to an old man who’s old enough to be your father?”

At a secret party in the capital of Rutemia.

Count Queensguard was looking down at a woman about Cynthia’s age.

“An old man? A charming older gentleman deserves praise.”

The woman, who was showering him with compliments, gestured to a noble man with thinning hair and a potbelly.

“I can’t believe he’s the same age as you. I heard you were the most handsome man in the kingdom in your younger days? I want to hear about those days.”

As a former knight, he was tall and had a sturdy physique that suited his suit well, and his outstanding appearance even packaged the traces of time as dignity.

He had received so many offers of love that he found the attention of others annoying.

‘That’s why I hate crowded places.’

Still, he wasn’t cold to the young woman.

The Count smoothed his neatly parted silver-gold hair and gave her a perfunctory smile.

“Lady, you’ll have more fun talking to a man your own age than to me.”

At his kind tone, as if he were coaxing a child, the woman glanced at her father, who was standing far away, and looked sullen.

“But the reality is that I’m going to marry a man I don’t want. I’ll be lucky if I’m not sold to an 80-year-old.”

“I have a son left in my house, but he happens to be a typical ‘man that women don’t want.’”

“Aren’t you left, Count? Does your son not need a stepmother?”

“Oh, dear.”

The jokes of these days. The Count closed his eyes tightly and sighed.

The woman pointed to a middle-aged man with a receding hairline.

“I’m going to marry that man. It’s my father’s decision. But I heard that you set age conditions for the marriage partners of the Princesses. I envy the Princesses who have you as their father.”

The Count tilted his head as he watched the lady’s back as she left with a bitter face.

“Isn’t an age condition obvious?”

It wasn’t that he was thinking of them because they were his children, it was just obvious.

Then, someone approached the Count and greeted him.

“Would you like a cigar?”

It was a politician from the anti-royalist party.

This party was a secret meeting of anti-royalist forces, attended by various figures from the emerging aristocracy, the financial world, and the political and business world.

They were also the behind-the-scenes forces of the former revolutionary army and the People’s Liberation Front.

The recent prison terrorism incident was also their doing, with the aim of eliminating the royal family.

“No cigars.”

At the Count’s refusal, the politician smiled kindly.

“At first, I thought you had turned to the royalist side. You hate the royal family more than anyone else, but you had a plan, didn’t you? As a mere commoner, I couldn’t have imagined it.”

The anti-royalists felt betrayed, thinking that the Count had planned to use his children to establish a new monarchy from the beginning, but now they regarded it as a sophisticated strategy to cut off the seeds of possibility by pretending to be allies.

“But why did you suddenly sell your mansion? And at half the price. The leader is very pleased. He has wanted to buy your mansion for a premium since before, hasn’t he?”

Whether the politician followed him and chattered or not, the Count sat on a chair and crossed his legs.

He tapped the end of his smooth shoes and belatedly answered as he picked up a servant’s glass.

“Just because.”

“I heard that it was a mansion built to propose to Princess Margarita in the past. Considering what the royal family did, you must be furious with betrayal. Not only did they make unreasonable demands as marriage conditions, but they later tried all sorts of dirty tricks to break the promise.”

“Was there anything dirtier than sending me into exile to the border under the pretext of going to war?”

At his indifferent question, the politician shrugged with a sly expression.

“They must have planned to frame the proud knight with a crime that would be a disgrace and kill him. For example, that the knight dared to lay a hand on the Princess……”

Seeing a subtle crack in the Count’s brow, the politician quickly shut his mouth.

“You still talk too much.”

At the chillingly subdued gaze, the politician smiled awkwardly, sweating profusely.

Meanwhile, the atmosphere of the party was ripening, and everyone was raising a toast of joy.

“With this, the revival of the monarchy is completely thwarted!”

They were raising glasses filled with blood-red wine, celebrating the deaths of the royal family.

Now, the right of succession would be tied to Edford, who was nothing more than the Count’s puppet.

“You said you were curious as to why I handed over the mansion to the leader.”

At Count Queensguard’s low voice, the politician who was drinking wine looked at him.

The Count shook his glass slowly with an indifferent face. His glass contained absinthe with a dazzling green color, not red wine.

“It was to come to this place. It just so happened that everyone was gathered.”

It was the perfect time to dispose of useless things.

The moment a cool sneer appeared on his expressionless face, the sound of people’s laughter stopped abruptly.

Clang-!

As if it were a signal, the sound of shattering glass echoed.

“Ugh!”

The politician, who had been talking so much, grabbed his neck and slumped down.

Soon, the sound of glass breaking and painful groans were mixed one after another.

“Ugh……!”

“Cough!”

Those who drank the wine began to vomit blood and fall one by one.

Soon, the door burst open and men with guns rushed in, dealing with those who were still alive.

Count Queensguard’s method had begun.

“How many times am I seeing the same scene?”

In the cruel drama filled with screams and gunshots, the Count, who was sitting leisurely with his chin resting on his hand, let out a bored sigh.

From the beginning, he did not belong to any force.

He had no common desires, nor anything he desperately wanted.

His time stopped at the moment he woke up from an impossible dream, and nothing could match that earnestness.

He was just a man behind the curtain, manipulating people’s desires by attaching good-looking strings.

Finally, the noise subsided, and an eerie silence came.

“It’s a little quieter now.”

The Count, who hated noise, leisurely savored his drink.

Then, he suddenly heard a sob.

He took the glass away from his lips and looked in the direction of the sound.

“Hic…… Sniff…….”

Under the tablecloth, the woman who had spoken to him was cowering and trembling, covering her mouth.

The Count slowly raised his body.

“That’s why I’m telling you to meet a man your own age, lady.”

No matter how neat and gentlemanly the appearance may be, he is still a worn-out man.

He made eye contact with her in a straight posture and gave her a kind smile, filled with terror.

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I guess you could say ‘you remind me of my daughter.’”